Online bill presentment and payment solutions provide the capability to present bills from service providers (hereinafter referred to as “billing companies” or “billers”) to customers and to facilitate bill payment by electronic means on the biller websites. Solutions for electronic payment include credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, and the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network. The ACH system includes direct deposit, direct debit and electronic checks (e-checks). Such electronic payment options on the biller websites offer an array of advantages, such as eliminating the costs associated with printing paper bills and reducing the delivery delays associated with other payment options, such as mailing a paper check to the billers or making a bill payment using ACH on a bill pay website, respectively.
In contrast to the electronic payment options provided by the billers, banks have built their services around a “consolidator” method for online bill presentment and payment. According to this service, a customer's bills are collected from multiple billers and are accumulated at a bank bill pay website. The customer is only required to log-in to the bank bill pay website, enter the biller's information, and authorize the bank to electronically transfer money or send a check via the US postal service from his/her account to pay each bill. Additionally, the customer can choose whether to do this manually for each billing cycle or have his/her bills automatically paid on a fixed day each month. A disadvantage of the “consolidator” method faced by the customers is that their payment option is limited only to the ACH accounts. Thus, the customers cannot utilize the “consolidator” model to make a payment via a credit card or a debit card issued by the banks. Another disadvantage is that the “consolidator” solution does not facilitate immediate payment of bills. Typically, it takes at least 2-5 days before the money is debited from the user's account and credited to the biller's account.
In addition to the above mentioned disadvantages, the “consolidator” model also poses a problem for the banks since more than half of the bank's bill pay customers also use a “biller-direct” method, i.e., they skip the bank website and go directly to the biller website to make the payments for their bills. Further, the banks are losing out on the potential for interchange revenues realizable through bill payments made with a credit card or a debit card.
Therefore, even though nearly all banks offer a bill payment solution, a majority of the households in the US still prefer to the “biller-direct” method. Further, the “biller-direct” method offers a large coverage area as there are over 16,000 biller websites, out of which over 11,000 biller websites accept a card as a payment option. Also, the biller websites typically accept multiple forms of card payments, including ACH, credit card, debit card, ATM card, etc. Also, a payment made by a customer is instantly confirmed when received by the biller.
A limitation of the “biller-direct” method is that the customers are required to visit each biller website individually to make the payment. In this process, some of the biller websites may require a customer to login with his/her login credentials. For such biller websites, the customer needs to remember the login credentials for each biller website. In addition, the customers also need to remember the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) of each biller website. The customers then manually navigate to a payment webpage and subsequently enter the payment information on each and every biller website. Further, the customers have to manually keep a track of the payment made at each of the biller websites.
In light of the above discussions, there is a need for a method and a system for integrating the consolidator method offered by bill pay websites, such as bank websites, with the “biller-direct” method. In addition, there is a need for a method and a system that assists a customer while performing online payment related activities directly at the biller websites from a bill pay website.